


Oh My Gourd (#SquashGoals)

by GaiusTheGenius



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 14:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12583536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaiusTheGenius/pseuds/GaiusTheGenius
Summary: Halloween!The Foxes help Wymack decorate his yard for trick or treaters.Does it count as an AU just because everyone is happy in this fic?





	Oh My Gourd (#SquashGoals)

A touch of winter was creeping into the air as an icy wind knocked leaves from the trees and rustled the fallen leaves scattered on the university grounds. The path to the athlete’s dorm, usually bare due to most of the students staying further down in the common dorms, was studded with plastic headstones, skeletons dangling from the sparse trees and fake cobwebs draped across the bare branches. Orange and green lights had been hung along the path, though they were currently unlit. At the top of the pathway, the athlete’s dorm loomed on the horizon, silent for now, waiting for the sun to set and the Halloween festivities to begin. At the other end of the walkway, a scattering of local residences boasted similar decorations, inviting daring trick-or-treaters to pass through to try their luck within.

“Andrew Joseph Minyard take your damn hand out of that bag!” Coach Wymack’s exasperated voice cut across the clamour of his cramped kitchen and all eyes turned to the counter, where their goalkeeper had frozen with his hand in one of the plastic shopping bags piled there.

“Sharing is caring, Coach, haven’t you heard?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at Wymack.

“And I’ll be _sharing_ that candy with the kids who trick or treat here later, dumbass!”  Wymack huffed, pulling the bags away and rolling his eyes. “I didn’t buy out the candy section of the store for you lazy bastards. If you lot want feeding you need to earn your keep!”

“We just won a game 11-1, Coach!” Nicky complained. “If that’s not earning our keep then what is?”

“I know some of you have trouble getting this into your thick skulls,” Wymack countered, “but there is more to life than exy – don’t start, Kevin – and right now what I am interested in is getting these decorations finished in time for the local schools to let out when the kids start swarming the streets. Make yourselves useful, go on!” He replaced the bags of candy on the counter with three new bags, full of plastic decorations, lights, and three slightly misshapen pumpkins.

Matt, Kevin and Nicky, being the only three tall enough to be useful, took a string of lights and began to unspool them, making their way from the plug socket in the hallway to the trees and guttering outside.

“Grab the bag, Aaron!” Nicky called over this shoulder. “You can start to separate out the next string while we hang this one!”

Allison snagged the second bag and peered inside at the plastic decorations. “Not bad, Coach,” she mused. “Coming?” She directed this at Dan and Renee, the first of whom nodded and slipped off of the kitchen table where she had been perched. Renee, however, smiled and shook her head.

“I’ll come out later, if you still need help.” She gestured at the three pumpkins on the counter. “I’ll help in here first.”

“What are we doing?” Neil asked Wymack. The Coach looked at Neil for a moment.

“Jack o’ lanterns, kid.” He said, pulling out his phone and tapping on the screen. He held the phone out to Neil. “Please don’t tell me you’ve never seen these before.”

“It’s easier than it looks,” Renee smiled at Neil. “The pumpkins are actually pretty much hollow, there’s just some seeds to scrape out, so it’s easier to cut through them than you’d imagine.” She had been rummaging in the drawers of Wymack’s small kitchen and had produced three knives, two of which she held out to Andrew and Neil. “And we faces don’t have to been too complex, as long as the holes are big enough for the light to shine through.”

Andrew had taken his knife without hesitation and started to idly swing it, holding the handle between his thumb and middle finger, but Neil had stopped, his eyes on the proffered blade. Andrew stopped and put his knife back down on the counter. He turned to face Neil, not speaking but staring at him, his gaze a steady pressure that after a moment Neil turned his eyes to meet.

“So many issues,” Andrew murmured as soon as Neil made eye contact. Neil swallowed.

“It’s stupid, I know-“ he started.

“Shut up.” Andrew interrupted. “You’re an idiot for so many reasons but this is not one of them. Yes or no?”

Neil’s eyes searched Andrew’s face for a second. “Yes.”

Andrew reached out and took Neil’s hand in his. Slowly, making his intentions clear enough that Neil could say no if he wanted, Andrew pulled their joined hands towards his discarded knife on the counter. He closed Neil’s hand around the handle but kept hold himself as well.

“This is a tool,” he said lowly to Neil, both of their eyes on their joined hands on the knife handle. “It is an object. Completely neutral. How you use it is up to you. How about using it to decorate a fruit for a bunch of kids?”

Neil swallowed, his eyes on the knife, but then his lips twitched and his eyes moved back to Andrew’s. “Yes or no?” he echoed, and on Andrew’s nod he darted in and pecked a kiss to the corner of Andrew’s mouth. “I can’t think of a better use for a knife,” he smiled.

Renee, who had busied herself with her back to them, starting on her pumpkin, held a hand out behind her to pass Andrew the third knife. He took it and stepped up to the counter, rolling one pumpkin towards himself and the other along to Neil beside him.

By the time the other Foxes had traipsed back into the kitchen, their yard decorations complete, Renee had finished her lantern and was wiping down the counter while Andrew and Neil put the finishing touches to theirs. Andrew was scraping the outside layer off around the mouth and shaping the lighter coloured area into large teeth that were bared in a gormless grin. [Added to the wide eyes he had carved above them, the result was a mixture of comical and grotesque.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/2b/1b/b32b1bebc2be5e98e81e6ad11440cc40.jpg) Neil had not let Andrew or Renee see his pumpkin as he was carving, but soon after the rest of the team entered the room he turned and grinned at them. He stepped aside. He had used the piece of pumpkin cut from the back to cut out ears and a tail, which he had balanced in place around the edge and on the top of the pumpkin. He had cut thin jagged lines on either side of the face, designed to look like tufts of hair. [It was, undeniably, a fox. ](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XULtSMJw0nA/UmX-p2i8J_I/AAAAAAAAA00/bHvKRzGU-dg/s1600/pumpkin+fox+jackolantern+with+tail.JPG)

“Awesome, Neil!” gushed Nicky, leaning forwards to look closer. “Hey, Coach! Look at this!”

Wymack poked his head around the door into the kitchen. He looked at Neil’s pumpkin, then at Neil. He sent Neil a smile and a nod and raised his glass in his direction. Andrew snorted. “Junkie,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, then, louder: “Why not just leave it whole and say it’s a ball? I think Kevin’s about the cry with pride.”

Kevin opened his mouth but Wymack wisely redirected the conversation. “Alright, I suppose you’ve made yourselves useful,” he relented. “The bags on the coffee table are for the kids but you can help yourselves to the one on the couch. Now scram, before I find more jobs for you to do. Enjoy your night, but not too much. Practise is at 11 tomorrow and if you’re not there then what I’ve got planned for you will give you more nightmares than any Halloween gimmick.”

Wymack’s threats, by now more a comforting predictability than anything to take serious heed of, nonetheless spurred the Foxes into action. Matt seized the bag from the couch and they filed after him down the hall to the front door. As he left the kitchen, Andrew let his fingers brush, feather-light, over the back of Neil’s hand, and Neil immediately turned his hand over and retook Andrew’s hand in his.

“Thank you,” he murmured, rubbing his thumb over the back of Andrew’s hand. Andrew’s fingers tightened around Neil’s.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he snapped, the hard words belied by the warmth of his hand in Neil’s as they trailed after their teammates, heading back to the dorms to change into their costumes before heading out for Columbia. Allison and Nicky were bickering about something ahead, likely the outcome of a bet they had made about something at Wymack’s house. Their voices carried through the crisp air, punctuated by excited young trick or treaters spilling into the darkening streets behind them. The sun had set while they were at Wymack’s and the lights lining the path had blinked on, washing them all in orange light as they walked together back home.


End file.
